The garage where Deep Throat gave away a President
Fly to Washington, home to run-of-the-mill political sites like the FBI Headquarters and the White House. But don't delay there; hail a cab to head east, past the famous Watergate Building and across the Potomac River. The multilevel garage is about ten minutes away, at the junction of Wilson Boulevard and North Nash Street.
The garage is suitably anonymous. There is not even a large blue “P” sign to symbolize something of political interest. (Or parking, of course.) But Level D, four levels down in the multi-story building, is where one Mark Felt, sometime Deputy Director of the FBI, secretly briefed the Washington Post journalist, Bob Woodward, and brought about the impeachment of President Nixon.
The walls are whitewashed with bright red pipes, and stenciled location markings. “32” marks the exact spot where the rendezvous took place. Alas, the upkeep of this historic spot Is rather erratic, and it is often strewn with litter.
The garage rendezvous was immortalized in the film All the President's Men, long before its real life counterpart was publicly acknowledged. Curiously, as the meeting point was just by a ventilation shaft, conversations could have been easily overheard. Albeit probably with some words indistinct or missing. Not as bad though, as the famous “Oval Office Tapes,” starring President Nixon, that Mr. Felt advised the journalist to look into, with its famous eighteen and a half-minute gap. This revealed that Tricky Dicky had been ordering political burglaries, which in those days was considered to be A BAD THING. Ah, lost innocence!
So, is it safe then to meet in garages in Washington, D.C., or was Deep Throat (Mr. Felt to you) taking a bit of a risk? After all, back in 1998, Washington, D.C. briefly had the prestige of being the United States' most dangerous city, and—even sexier—was officially the place you were most likely to be murdered in the whole world.
A widely reported survey conducted by the British government of twenty European and nine North American cities found the capital of the Free World way out in front in the crime league with a murder rate of 69.3 per 100,000 population.
That made Washington nearly two hundred times more dangerous than the rival political capital, Brussels, home to the administration of the European Union, with a miserly 0.4 murders per 100,000 citizens. Even deaths from its infamous chocolate couldn't push the Belgian total up much. By way of comparison the well-armed communities of strife-torn Belfast—the most dangerous city in the UK—managed a death rate barely a twentieth that of Washington's.
But in fact, more recent analysis of the statistics by Morgan Quitno Corporation (all 369 cities and 330 metropolitan areas in the US, ranked in a 28-page $4.99—cancel that!—now $1.99 document) relegated Washington to near the bottom of the rankings. The consolation for the risk-seeker is that en route to Washington they can at the very least detour through Camden, New Jersey, the new holder of the United States' “most dangerous city” title.